Influence of Gender and Demographic Variables on Awareness of Secondary School Students on HIV / AIDS Infection in Abuja , Nigeria

In many parts of the world, HIV/AIDS has gained pandemic dimension covering large areas and continues to spread. There are reports that worldwide, 45% of people contracting HIV/AIDS are adolescents aged between 15 and 24 years. The presence of HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria elicited similar response to that experienced by many countries in Africa, and indeed, the world: denial, acceptance and finally actions to fight the scourge. Since adolescents appear to be vulnerable to HIV/AIDS infection, this study ascertained the knowledge of HIV/AIDS infection among secondary school students in Abuja. A descriptive survey design was employed. Using multistage sampling technique, 602 senior secondary school students in Abuja were selected to participate in the study. A self-developed validated questionnaire was used to collect data and data was analysed using mean, frequency counts, percentages to describe the data and ANOVA, t-test and regression were used to analyse hypotheses and question set at 0.05 significant level. The major findings were that the students of older age group had knowledge of HIV/AIDS (p < 0.05) and the younger age group did not have knowledge; Male students appear more knowledgeable than the female students (p < 0.05); gender, class and religion had influence on the knowledge of the students on HIV/AIDS (P < 0.05). In conclusion, Gender and Demographic Variables continue to limit the awareness of secondary school students on HIV/AIDS infection. Stakeholders must be involved in the proactive advocy and education of secondary school students on HIV/AIDS in order to gain adequate knowledge. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/jasem.v23i1.8 Copyright: Copyright © 2019 Anetor. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCL), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Dates: Received: 13 December 2018; Revised: 17 January 2019; Accepted 22 January 2019

According to National Agency for the control of AIDS (NACA, 2016), Nigeria has the second largest HIV epidemic in the world of which 60% is among young people.With adolescence comes an increase in risk taking.Given the freedom to experiment, adolescents often take careless risks as well indulging in substance abuse and violence which leads to grim consequences some of which can be an infection with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/ Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (World Health Organisation (WHO), 2008).In many parts of the world, HIV/AIDS has become a pandemic.Large areas are affected and the pandemic continues to spread (Kibombo. Neema and Ahmed, 2007;Ebeniro, 2010;Janckie, Garegae and Tshako, 2011).Durojaiye (2009) reports that worldwide, 45% of people contracting HIV/AIDS are adolescents aged between 15 and 24 years.This is supported by other researchers who have found that adolescents aged 15 to 24 years constitute the largest population of HIV infected subjects (Ebeniro, 2010).The presence of HIV/AIDS epidemic in Nigeria elicited similar response to that experienced by many countries in Africa, and indeed, the world: denial, acceptance and finally actions to fight the scourge.However, in the case of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, the denial phase was too prolonged, the acceptance too reluctant, and the actions have been too weak to deal with the scale of the epidemic.Although HIV/AIDS spreads across social status, ethnic groups, race and religion, some conditions predispose some people to become more vulnerable to infection than others.In the forefront of these conditions are low levels of literacy, harmful cultural practices, poor health seeking behaviour as well as limited access to information and health services (Bamise, 2011).The World Health Organization (2018) defines adolescence as a transitional phase of growth and development between childhood and adulthood.WHO defines an adolescent as any person between ages 10 and 19 years.Adolescents are essential to man power development and technological advancement in Nigeria, HIV epidemic is on the increase among this vulnerable group due to lack of sexuality education and rightful intervention programs.The magnitude of the HIV epidemic as well as the prevailing lack of sexual health interventions targeting young people in sub-Saharan Africa calls for a wider awareness and strategic approach-based advocacy.Therefore, the objective of this study was to ascertain the influence of gender and demographic variables on the awareness of Secondary School Students towards HIV/AIDS Infection in Abuja, Nigeria.This is deemed appropriate because young adolescents appear to be vulnerable at their stage of life to HIV/AIDS.Secondary school students are at the stage of adolescence and at this stage, they are affected by various transformations including physical, emotional and social changes and as well as peer pressure.With these come experimentation which subjects them to risky behavior that may expose them to HIV and AIDS.It is anticipated also that the result of this study may be a basis for further education in areas of sex and health education for the adolescents.The six area council in Abuja was divided into 3 strata with two councils in each stratum.Then one council was randomly selected from each stratum; making 50% selection from the available area council.The selected councils were Amac, Kuje and Bwari.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Stage two: Proportional sampling is used in this stage.20% from the total number of schools in each selected area council was selected to participate in this study to allow for a robust coverage of schools.Amac 21 schools; so 4 schools made up 20%; Kuje had 5 schools, so 1 school made up 20%; Bwari had 10 schools, so 2 schools made up 20%.This made a total seven (7) schools to participate (4 schools from Amac, 1school from Kuje area council and 2 schools from Bwari area council).
Stage three: Simple random sampling was then used to select the schools to participate from each area council.The selected schools are (i) AMAC-i, Maitaima army day secondary school (Maitaima ADSS) (ii).
Wuse II government day secondary school (Wuse II GDSS) (iii).Asokoro army day secondary school (Asokoro ADSS) (iv).Kabusa government secondary school (Kabusa GSS) (v).BWARI AREA COUNCIL -Mpape government secondary school (Mpape GSS) (vi).Jibi government secondary school (GSS Jibi) (vii).KUJE AREA COUNCIL-Pegi government secondary school (Pegi GSS) Stage four: In the selected schools, respondents where sorted using stratified sampling.The population is already into groups or strata of SSS1-SSS3.SSS3 students would be exempted from this research because they are undertaking external examination, thus only SSS1 and SSS2 students will be asked to participate in this research.
Stage five: 20% of student population from each selected school will be selected for the study in order to get a large enough sample size (proportional sampling method) and also to take care of attrition.
Stage six: Simple random sampling will be used to select the calculated 20% of students to participate in the study.At the end of sampling, 607 students were selected but the study was concluded with 506 participants (16% attrition rate).Table one below shows the final selection of students that participated in the study: The research instrument was a selfdeveloped validated questionnaire with coefficient (r) was 0.87.The questions were divided into the following parts: Section I: Socio-demographic data: There were five questions in this part.The questions include gender, age, religion, class and school.Section II: Knowledge on HIV/AIDS infection: There were ten questions in this part and were asked to know the general knowledge of secondary school students about HIV/AIDS infection.6 of the questions were multiple choice while 4 questions were dichotomous.A correct answer for each question was given 1 score and 0 score for a wrong answer.Two research assistants were employed to assist with the collection of data.
Data Analysis: Data analysis was employed using statistical package for social science (SPSS).The data were analyzed using frequency counts, means and percentages to summarize and describe data, while T-test and ANOVA were used to determine relationships at 0.05 significant level.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Table 2 shows the total number of 197 males and 309 females took part in the study of which 38.9% where males and 61.1% females as shown in the table above.The total number of 367 Christians and 139 Muslims took part in the study.The greater number of participants came from 14-15 age group and the smallest from 12-13 age group.This study investigated the knowledge of HIV/AIDS infection among secondary school students in Abuja.The result of the sociodemograhic variables (table 2) in this study showed a total of 506 senior secondary school students took part in this study.The sociodemograhic data (table 2) shows that more females participated in this study than males.This may be because the males have already erroneously developed the mentality that females are to be more concerned with HIV/AIDs than males.This finding confirms the finding of DiCarlo et al ( 2014) where they reported that in Lesotho, men generally are not well disposed to any discussion or tests relating to HIV/AIDS like their female counterpart.Another plausible reason for more females than males in the study is because generally, there are more female students than males in the schools.The religion of the students fall under the two dominant religious group in the country-Christianity and Islam.Although, the Christians were more in this study, the two religions tend to have the same moral values of premarital abstinence and the students are expected to put their religions values to play and may have had preknowledge of HIV/AIDS from their churches and mosques.The sociodemograhic table also shows that the highest age group of the students that participated in this study were between the ages of 14 -17 years.(Kar, Choudhury, and Singh, 2015).The table also shows the number of students in SSS 1 and SSS11 that participated in the study; the number is relatively close enough for comparison.4 above further shows the relative knowledge of each of the age groups on the basic knowledge of transmission of HIV/AIDS, i.e. 12-13 (β = -.026;p > .05);14-16 (β = .491;p < .05);16-17 (β = .365;p < .05)and 18+ (β = .128;p < .05).Hence, while age group 14-16, 16-17 and 18+ were significant, 12-13 years was not.This implies that students in the category of 18+ had basic knowledge of transmission of HIV/AIDS infection, followed by age group 16-17 and then 14-16 but only 12-13 had no knowledge of transmission.This may be due to the age bracket they fall into and the level at which they can understand concepts.The first hypothesis (table 3) tested the knowledge of the students on HIV/AIDS infection.The Null hypothesis was rejected (p < 0.05) and the alternate hypothesis upheld: that is there is knowledge of HIV/AIDS infection among the students.The regression analysis carried out (table 4) further shows that the youngest age group (12-13 years) did not have knowledge of HIV/AIDS.This implies the need of sexuality, sex and sexually transmitted disease education for the students especially in this age group.This is very important as the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) reported in 2016 that there is no available data for the children between 10 -14 years infected by AIDS in Nigeria (NACA, 2016).Thus, prevention is really important and research should be encouraged targeting the statistics of HIV/AIDS among this age group and impacting knowledge with the knowledge of HIV/AIDS.Table 5 above shows the t-test analysis between male and female students on knowledge of HIV/AIDS infection.The results reveal higher mean score recorded on the knowledge of HIV/AIDS infection in male students (X = 18.06) than the female students (X = 15.28),indicating that male students are more expose to knowledge of HIV/AIDS than their female counterpart.Calculated t-value (79.86) is greater than critical t-value (1.96).Therefore, null hypothesis is rejected.It implies that gender significantly influenced secondary school students' knowledge of HIV/AIDS infection.The second hypothesis (table 5) examined the influence of gender on the knowledge of HIV/AIDS.Surprisingly, the males appeared to have more knowledge than the females.This is surprising because the students are age group and are at the same educational level.This finding is at variance with the finding of Burgoyne and Drummond (2008) when they attributed the more knowledge of HIV/AIDS among men to illiteracy level among the women.The difference in gender knowledge here may be related to a higher curiosity of the males and may also be due to a better cultural and social exposure on the part of the males.
In a previous study, Oluduro (2010) emphasized the need of proactive advocacy by religious leaders in the churches and mosques to combat HIV/AIDS infection.The advocacy will widen the knowledge of everyone but if taken directly to the secondary schools, the students will have more knowledge.
With this finding, it may appear that the churches may have gotten more involved in this HIV/AIDS education and awareness.In considering the class of study influence on HIV/AIDS (table 8), the t-test analysis showed that the students in SS1 appear to have contributed a higher mean in knowledge implying better understanding of HIV/AIDS.This again, is very surprising as one would have expected the students in the higher class (SS11) to be the ones with the higher knowledge.The difference in this finding may have been contributed by a particular Influence of Gender and Demographic Variables on Awareness…..

ANETOR, GO
school or schools; this study has the limitation of not checking school by school contribution to the class knowledge difference.It is thus suggested as an area of further study.

Conclusion:
There is still lack of sufficient knowledge among secondary school students concerning HIV/AIDS infection; gender and sociodemograhic variables significantly contribute to the awareness of HIV/AIDS infection.This calls for more proactive advocacy on all stakeholders (teachers, religious groups, parents, and government and non-government organizations-NGOs to educate adolescents on HIV/AIDs so that the disease can be more prevented in Nigeria.

Table 1 :
Selection of Participants

Table 2 :
Sociodemograhic variables There will be no significant difference in knowledge of HIV/AIDS infection among secondary school students in Abuja.

Table 3 :
Knowledge of HIV/AIDS infection among secondary school students in Abuja

Table 4 :
Regression analysis of Students' Age on Knowledge of Transmission of HIV/AIDS Infection

Table 5 :
T-test Analysis between Gender and Students' Knowledge of HIV/AIDS Infection

Table 6 .
Regression of Students' Ages on Basic Knowledge of Transmission of HIV/AIDS Infection

Table 7 :
T-test Analysis between Students' Religion and knowledge of HIV/AID Transmission

Table 8 :
T-test Analysis between SS1 and SS2 Students on Knowledge of Transmission of HIV/AIDS Infection